


A Song for Sorrow

by ChibiEmme



Category: Little Busters!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Happy Ending?, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, GirlxBoy, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Heavy Angst, How Do I Tag, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, No Smut, boyxgirl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-29 15:37:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19022848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibiEmme/pseuds/ChibiEmme
Summary: Riki Naoe lost everything he loved the day of the bus crash-everything except Rin Natsume. Funeral after funeral, day after day, the two hold on to each other by a thread. After Rin is attacked by her childhood tormentors, that very thread is cut by their own grief. All they have left is a plan to enter a fabricated world, and they will stop at nothing-not even their ill-abled bodies-until their wish is met.





	A Song for Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> A fan continuation of the visual novel bad ending.
> 
> **Trigger Warnings**  
> \- Major Character Death  
> \- Graphic Depiction of Violence  
> \- Graphic Depiction of Illness (including vomiting)
> 
> The song that Rin sings is "Hold On" by Chord Overstreet

A beep.

He had heard that sound a lot throughout his life, what with all his hospitalizations, and it was never something he liked. It was an interruption, something that always took him from his blissful tranquility whilst asleep. He would always fall and crack, like the china on a table after the tablecloth had been pulled from it and dragged the fragile dishware along.

He automatically knew what had happened before he opened his eyes. Even while in a groggy state, he still knew the nightmare that was his reality. The bus. His classmates. Even Kyousuke.

No, that was just a bad dream; he was hallucinating it all. He didn't see those bloody, barely-living bodies scattered among the tattered shambles of the transport. He was back in his dorm room, and maybe that beeping was his alarm clock. Maybe Masato would let him sleep in since he felt so exhausted and sore.

A small voice squeaked from beside him, one that definitely didn't belong to Masato: "R-Riki?"

Her voice, so scared and hinted with a lavender hue of pain, made his weary eyes shoot open. He despised the ceiling above him, both unfamiliar and cold. The air was too antiseptic, and it gave him a horrid headache to just breathe. His breathing was labored, and he looked around the room for someone—anyone—to reassure him the nightmare wasn't his reality.

The brunette stared him in the eyes, her figure hunched over in the corner of the hospital room. Her legs were the teddy bear for her chest, and Riki noticed the bandages wrapped firmly around both her arms. Her eyes were still those beautiful sunsets he so adored to gaze into, however, they were lifeless. It was as if her childlike nature had been drained out of her, replaced by a void of numbness.

Rin's stone-hard gaze softened as she realized Riki was now turned to face her. She gave an unsure smile—one that, surprisingly, mirrored Komari's.

Riki tried his voice, as stubborn as it was, and it only came out hoarse. How long had he been asleep for? "Rin," he called out, reaching out his hand for her to grasp and grip him to the Earth. "A-Are you alright?"

Rin took his hand but didn't say anything. She stared blankly at the clock pasted adjacent to Riki's bed, seemingly distant. "You slept for a long time," she whispered.

Riki chuckled in an attempt to lighten the mood. "I was tired."

Her grip on his hand tightened, possibly hurting whatever she was trying to heal. He wondered if she was alright, but he figured she would be alright if she wasn't confined to a bed like him.

Rin's lips parted, hesitant. It was as if the words stalled on her tongue, and she didn't seem like she wanted to say anything but had to. Her eyes drifted back to the boy in the bed, glistening and filled with an abundance of unshed tears. "Riki, they won't tell me anything about the others."

She paused before continuing:

"I'm worried."

Riki watched a tear stream from one of her eyes, leaving a streak scarred in her skin. His chest was tight, and he was certain the explanation wasn't his narcolepsy; it was the lingering feeling that things weren't right.

"Rin," he called.

The bell tied into the side of her hair was music to Rikki's ears. Whenever he called her name, it was there: a reassurance that she was there with him and alive. He squeezed her hand, hearing a small whimper from the wounded brunette. "I-I want you to know that I will always protect you. No matter what happens, I will stay by your side."

Rin's eyes trailed downwards to meet the lingering space in between her legs. The tiled floor must have been fascinating, it seemed. She sniffled, muttering something far intangible for the male to process in his feverish state. 

His mind wandered back to Kyousuke, Rin's older (and far more mature) brother. The sight of tears dribbling his best friend's cheeks was burned into the film of Riki's consciousness, replaying over and over again with no means of termination. His chest burned more than he had ever felt before, and he was no stranger to heartburn. His vision swirled once more, sleep threatening to once again take him from the painful reality he refused to live in.  _No_ , he told himself,  _Rin is still here._

Riki found himself unable to hold his composure in any longer when he saw tear droplets falling to the linoleum below the brunette's hunched figure. Rin was crying. He quickly assessed her, looking for cuts, burns, or anything else he could find on her frail, pale skin. He would never forgive himself if he let the girl get hurt because of him.

And then, he saw it between the niches long strands of hair resting on her neck: a red, irritated burn.

In the fit of emotion that overcame him, the brown-haired male grasped Rin's hurt wrist with newfound force. She yelped, her body pulled up so that her nose was almost touching Riki's. Her breath hitched in pain, her frightened, raspberry-colored eyes bulged open to meet his gray and angry ones. "What did you do?" he shouted loudly.

Rin's eyes were pouring with tears as she choked a sob. "I-I tried to s-save them!"

Riki grew furious still. "And what made you think you could do that by yourself, huh?" He winced slightly at the hurt in his own words, though he could not stop the waterfall of words spilling out his mouth. "You can't do anything right, can you?"

The trembling girl looked so small in his grasp. She pleaded over and over for him to stop, but his furious lips paid no mind to the pitiful little girl. She gritted her teeth, a tiny bit of blood falling from her chapped lips. "I-It h-hurts!" she cried through her whimpers.

Finally, Riki felt his hand fall slack as Rin retracted her arm with fear in her guts. He averted her hurt gaze to look at his own calloused hand, which were now raised above his head. He cursed himself once more. He cursed his narcolepsy for making him so vulnerable and weak—too weak to protect the one person he had left. Or, maybe it was just him? He couldn't care less about himself at that moment.

"I'm s-sorry," he swiftly apologized, a hand muffling his voice as he attempted (and failed) to keep his damp cheeks from becoming noticeable to the younger Natsume sibling. "I j-just . . . don't w-want to l-lose you too."

Rin shook her head, her arm wiping the tears from her eyes with a sniffle from her nose. "No," she said. "They a-aren't gone. . . ."

Despite the comforters surrounding his body in a cocoon of warmth, he was freezing. Nothing mattered more to him than warmth— _her_ warmth. He needed to feel her touch again, hear her lulling breath, and relish in the compelling motion of stroking through her chocolate locks. He needed his girl to soothe both of their wild emotions, and he would never let up until her pain-hued sobs were overcome by her own soft snores of tranquility.

So, he did all he knew he could then and there: he scooted his body as far to the side as he could, mindful of the IV catheter attached to his forearm, and beckoned for the brunette to join him on the bleak, lifeless hospital bed. Rin's neck craned up so her glossy eyes locked on Riki. His facial expression was unreadable to her naive mind, but she could still sense something familiar in his longing look; it was warm, lathered in love and salted in sorrow.

Nodding her head in affirmation, the brunette soon found herself pressed against Riki's side, her head resting on his chest like a pillow. Patting her head, Riki pulled the blanket over the Rin's petite body and hugged her as tight as he could without hurting either of them. He took in her scent, having knowing the girl had gotten a shower since their time in the bus crash. He could pick out hints of lavender and citrus, mixed with the grapefruit-like smell of whatever conditioner she put in her hair that morning. But, he knew all those smells were to scrub out every last reminder of the tragedy, every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears. Yet, she was still Rin. Hidden behind her facade was a scared little girl, and Riki would make sure she was scared ever again.

" _Hold on, I still want you._ " the sweet, feminine voice from below him sang. He looked over, finding Rin furled in the covers, her voice muffled as she sang her song of sorrow. " _Come back, I still need you._ "

Before she could sing any more words, she was overcome by sobs yet again. Clutching the sheets beneath them, Rin allowed Riki to rub circles on her back and shush her cries.

"Hey, Riki?" Rin whispered into his chest, once she had regained a fracture of her feeble composure. With a hum from the said boy, she continued with a shaky voice: "D-Do you think e-everyone will be okay?"

Riki chuckled to himself, a finger of his entangling in a strand of Rin's hair. "Of course."

He had no idea who he was pretending for: himself or Rin?


End file.
